A/N: My first ever Kidlock chapter; my mum is an accomplished musician and went to music college herself. As a tribute to her musicianship, I wanted to capture the sense of belonging and satisfaction she got from her degree in a chapter of this story. We know that Sherlock is an excellent violinist (though I'm not sure he's at professional standard, as he is in many fics). I also really like the idea of John being really very good as a musician, but choosing to funnel all his efforts into sciences at school to focus on his ultimate goal of being a medic. However, the idea of Martin Freeman playing the clarinet is inexplicably hilarious to me: I think it has something to do with the self-deprecating, sarcastic raised eyebrow that would inevitably come along with it...Call me a fangirl and have done with it.

Here, they are fourteen and sixteen, and in the Royal College of Music's Saturday school. I'm quite sure it wouldn't have been around in the Nineties (gosh, I feel old), but what's a little chronological license between friends?

It was that rare thing: a quiet Saturday at 221B. Sherlock had gone to see his (surprisingly, beloved) mother while she visited London from Paris, taking his Stradivarius with him. "She does so love to hear him play; Mummy always said that Sherlock was the only violinist who could play 'Winter' without sounding like he was rushing to dinner. It was one of the first things he played solo with an orchestra." John had had a vague remembrance of hearing someone play it solo when he was a teenager, and wrinkled his nose in confusion, but shook it off and decided that it didn't really matter anyway. If he wanted to hear Sherlock play it, he could ask.

John had taken the opportunity to sit and read, catching up on a few back-issues of the BMJ and replying to an email Mike had sent from Hong Kong, where he was presenting at a conference on medical ethics. He'd dozed off on the sofa, waking up a couple of hours later to find that it was 3pm and already dark. Watching the tiniest of snowflakes drifting past the window, John was struck by the urge to do something he hadn't done in years, apart from the odd furtive hour here and there on his days off as a junior doctor.

Taking the stairs at a leisurely pace and humming quietly to himself, he crossed his room and reached under the far side of the bed, pulling out a battered leather case, monogrammed with HW. His grandfather, Hamish, had been a soldier in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, but had also had a stint as an instructor in the Scots Guards band. His instrument had been the flute, but John's delicate hands curved around the gleaming lacquered body of his own clarinet.

Taking it downstairs and setting up the music stand to the left of the table, John flicked his eyes through a few pieces of music before setting them down. He ran a few arpeggios to get himself used to the process of making the sounds as he wanted them again, then smiled. He'd decided to play his favourites.

He started with Saint-Saens' Tarantelle Number 6, relishing the lightness of touch and nimble fingerwork it asked of him; although it was difficult to play, to him difficulty was something to confront and learn from. Running away from a scary thing made it loom, because you could only imagine what it looked like. He liked a challenge as a musician, a doctor and, evidently (he thought ruefully) as a flatmate, too. Finishing up, he turned his attention to something altogether more appropriate for the weather, plucking Mozart's Clarinet Concerto out of his memory banks and beginning to play. He fell straight into the music, concentrating manfully on the flow of the piece and the swell of the notes around him. When he played, the music became almost tangible, as though fine glitter had been swept up and blown around him in a perfect golden spiral. Still playing, the tiny part of his brain not focused on the sound idly wondered if this was what synaesthesia felt like.

As John, eyes gazing absently out into the frigid night, had started to play, a dark figure made its way up the stairs. For some reason, he felt something pulling him into an unnatural quietness, lulled into silence by the hypnotic melody drifting out from under the front door. Stopping on the landing to push the door open, Sherlock peered 'round it and took a long blink.

When he opened his eyes, instead of the dark wood of their door, he saw an ornately corniced hall, solid oak floors and a jumble of bags and coats banked up against the wall. A long crocodile of plastic chairs snaked out across the wide room, forming three rows arranged in a loose semicircle. He had been coming here for a year now, looking forward to every Saturday as a day release from Harrow-on-the-Hill Asylum for the Junior Insane. School was nothing but a series of infuriating 'traditions', dull lessons, mindless prep and the dangerously anti-intellectual battleground that was the cricket pitch. The words 'Why can't you be more like your brother, Holmes?' mingled with being sent to Coventry for three weeks for revealing Croucher's payment of a younger boy to write his Greek translations for him combined to make boarding lonely and unpleasant, even if he wasn't quite the sociopath Dr Pontine thought he might be. Here he could craft, and create, and use his talents as tools to garner at least a little bit of respect, even amity. Father had taught him that being right was equally as important as being liked, but Sherlock's own response had been to wonder why he should bother getting people to like him if they didn't understand him. Here, they understood him, and tolerated his observant nature (to a point). His playing made up for his awkwardness; being creative could make you outcast when you outclassed everybody else, but here a sense of satisfaction was the ideal, rather than a social faux pas. Quirking his mouth up in a 'hello' sort of a gesture to Emily and Minty, Sherlock was drawn to a new starter rather older than many of those in the senior group.

Small. Blonde. Kind eyes: blue. Sadness behind them. Weariness the dominant emotional condition. Old clarinet, the same one he learned on judging by the wear on the fingerpads. Compact: rugby player. Seems friendly/open. Less need for reticence than usual. [Friends don't stay friends with me. Hypothesis not yet disproven: evidence currently empirically sound. Delete.] Bruises on the neck and forearm: shaped like hands. Too big to be a fellow student. Body language tilts towards Mrs Fletcher and away from Mr Frei: conclusion: father is abusive. Is he alright? Those bruises look nast- [Delete. Delete. Delete. Caring is not advantageous to successful completion of one's life goals.] He's coming over, but the woodwind section's that way...

"Hello, I'm John, John Watson. Nice to meet you. I've just joined; this fits in better with studying than the NYO." The new boy held out a small hand. Sherlock shook it, noting John's strong handshake and ready smile. "What's your name?" "I'm Sher-"

"Alright, everyone. Places for tuning and warm-ups, please. Woodwind sectionals are in Room 1, Brass in Room 2, Strings in Room 3. Piano and Percussion stay here, please."

Shutting his mouth with a snap, Sherlock snatched up his violin and music folder, following Emily and Minty down the hallway.

Three hours of rehearsals later, the group came back together to compose and play as a small and compact orchestra. After Verdi (dull), Saint-Saens (passable), Corelli (Mediaeval frippery) and Salieri (underrated, actually) came Mozart (oh for God's sake).

His interest in the piece they were to be playing was piqued when John Watson got up and came to the front, half-facing his peers and watching Mr Frei.

Mrs Fletcher trilled, "Our last piece this afternoon will be Mozart's Clarinet Concerto; it's John's first time playing with us, so do as you always do and take your cues from the soloist. Play with, rather than across. Okay, whenever we're ready."

As Mr Frei gave the signal, they all paused, poised to begin the second the baton came down. When John began to play, there was an audible intake of breath in the room. Sherlock had heard mutterings and rumours about the new boy over lunch as he shared Mummy's pfeffernusse with Emily, Minty, and Ariadne and Oliver, the second and third violinists in the School's ensemble. "Apparently, he joined us so late because his mum was ill and then his dad wouldn't let him go into London on his own. That's what Anthea says, anyway. He said his granddad had a word and persuaded him to let him try for the NYO last year, and when he found us he decided to audition," Minty whispered.

Oliver chimed in, "I've heard he tried out as a weekender for the Royal Conservatoire when he turned 16 and got in, but his dad wouldn't let him go." They had all goggled at the last part, but seemed sceptical that anyone could get into music college that young. Even Jessica Ando, their star pianist, had had to wait until she was 19 before the RCM had given her a place.

Now they were all eating their words-even Sherlock, who hadn't actually said anything.

John's nimble fingers fairly flew over the keys, and his playing was delicate and definite at the same time; clear but not stolid, technically brilliant but not sterile or boring, gossamer-light and undeniably present all at once. Sherlock thought that if only he had heard Mozart being played like that, perhaps he would have learned to see him as a composer, rather than a charlatan. He risked a glance over at Emily, finding her with moist eyes and a bright smile as she chipped in with the cello part. Ariadne was transfixed beside him, and Oliver shook his head minutely as they brought their bows down while John continued with his solo.

When, two weeks after that at the beginning of the summer hols, Father had banned him from the Saturday School for his abysmal school results, Sherlock had stormed up to his room. He'd sworn that until his dying day, he would never study, never cram, never write a report or an essay until he could live this house and take Mummy's violin with him. As Mycroft, home for the holidays, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, Sherlock put his violin away and reached for Cicero instead. As he thought of his safe haven, he blinked back bitter tears. He would never hear the clarinet played that way again, and all because Father couldn't understand that music was the only thing that made him good.

Coming out of the rehearsal room in his Mind Palace, Sherlock noted with sadness that John had stopped playing. Pushing open the door and setting his violin carefully upon the kitchen table, he smiled at John, who had assumed the expression of a startled hare.

"Erm. Hello-how much of that did you hear?"

"Just the Mozart. Was there more?"

John nodded. "Not nearly as good as when I was younger. I'm a bit out of practice now."

"I thought it was exquisite."

John blinked, nonplussed at the uncommonly high praise being meted out by a self-proclaimed sociopath. He tried to respond, but Sherlock had already gone up to his room. Sighing and rubbing the back of his neck with a sort of pleased embarrassment, John headed out to Tesco for milk and some actual food with a quick yell to Sherlock as he went. When he got back, Sherlock was curled up on the sofa in his 'thinking' pose. He managed to persuade him to eat some of his famous carbonara, settling down to read some George R R Martin as Sherlock jumped up to pore over some experiment to do with leaf mould and the discolouration of stainless steel, presumably for the ongoing Case of The Forest Fencer.

When John padded up to his bedroom a little while later, he stopped. A page of photographs from a prospectus had been pinned to the door with the captions underneath. He peered at them. One was of a freckly, dark-haired girl playing a flute alongside a cellist with a heart-shaped face ('Anthea Cross and Emily Scutiro'), and another of part of the woodwind section; himself, Lewis Donaldson the bassoonist, and Claire Clark, who'd played the oboe. Another one underneath showed three violinists-a blonde girl ('Emily Wheeler'), a Chinese boy ('Oliver Newlyns-Tang'), and a pale, thin boy with long fingers and a mop of curly hair: 'Sherlock Holmes'.

On the underside, in Sherlock's untidy scrawl, there was a missive.

"John,

Even if you are, as you say, 'out of practice', the Mozart reminded me of this. When we met that summer I did not know you. Now that I do, I feel there may be friendship in saying that the things I missed most when I was taken out of Summer School by my Father were twofold. Firstly, I missed having a place where no-one minded people who were odd like me, because what was oddness but a creative stimulus? The second was a friendly clarinettist."

John turned to find Sherlock peering up the stairs at him rather sheepishly. He smiled, then Sherlock smiled, and he bade his friend goodnight. They never spoke about it again, but at the next Christmas party both instruments miraculously appeared, side-by-side on the scrubbed oak table.

A/N II: Yes, I know. Sentiment, shameless fluff, OOC behaviour from Sherlock...sorry all! I get the feeling that Sherlock became detatched because no-one ever got him. I never had friends until I went to uni partly because I was a loner; I wasn't interested in the things that other people cared for, so I never really had anything to talk about. I was very much the one that didn't get the in-jokes. Thankfully I am pretty emotionally well-adjusted, because my Mum and Dad are not like Mr Holmes...There's also the small point that the mates I have now are all awesome human beans.

I actually get the impression that Mycroft and Sherlock really would have gone to a public school; I toyed with making it Westminster to foreshadow their political involvement, but I like the idea of Sherlock being forced into an Old Harrovian tie occasionally. The name Dr Pontine is a psychology joke; one of the harder things you learn to say in second-year Psychology at university is 'pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus'. Bit of a mouthful, but I nearly got a fiver for being able to say it, and so won't complain. The NYO is the National Youth Orchestra.

Also: spot the minor character!